Key Takeaways
- Fundraiser burnout is a sector-wide crisis – the average fundraiser stays in their role just 16 months before leaving, often permanently.
- Folk herbalism offers science-backed relief: adaptogenic and calming herbs directly modulate the body’s stress response systems.
- Kia Croom’s Itutu Apothecary & Tea Room turns personal healing experience into a hands-on, restorative Tea Blend & Sip experience with the unique needs of nonprofit professionals in mind.
- Burnout is not just a personal problem – it is an organizational risk that threatens mission delivery, staff retention, and long-term impact.
- Keep reading to learn how a hands-on herbalism experience could be the wellness reset your team actually needs.
Fundraisers pour everything into their work – late nights writing grants, emotional labor navigating donor relationships, and the constant pressure of doing more with less. The result? A sector quietly burning through its most dedicated people. A growing number of nonprofit professionals are finding relief in an unlikely place: folk herbalism.
Fundraisers Are Burning Out at Alarming Rates
The numbers are hard to ignore. Research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s State of Nonprofits 2024 report indicates that 95% of nonprofit leaders express concern about staff burnout, and nearly 50% report difficulty filling staff vacancies. Nonprofit organizations face turnover rates of approximately 19% – nearly double the 12% average across other industries. And at the center of it all is fundraising.
The average fundraiser stays in their role for just 16 months before moving on – many leaving the field altogether due to what researchers describe as industry burnout. That revolving door does not just hurt individual careers. It drains organizations of institutional knowledge, donor relationships, and fundraising momentum that take years to build.
The Hidden Toll on Nonprofit Professionals
Average Fundraiser Tenure: Around 16 Months
Sixteen months is barely enough time to build a major donor portfolio, let alone execute a multi-year fundraising strategy. Yet that is the reality for a significant portion of fundraising professionals. The short tenure cycle creates a feedback loop: understaffed teams lean harder on remaining staff, accelerating burnout for everyone left behind.
What Burnout Actually Looks Like in This Field
Burnout here is not simply feeling tired on a Friday afternoon. It is physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion built up over months of emotionally demanding work – advocating for causes that matter deeply while hitting revenue targets with shrinking resources. It shows up as cynicism, detachment, chronic fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and a growing sense that the work no longer feels meaningful. For many nonprofit professionals, these symptoms quietly accumulate long before they are recognized as burnout.
One Fundraiser’s Burnout Became a Breakthrough
A High-Stakes Career That Led to Anxiety and Depression
Kia Croom knows this story from the inside. A global fractional fundraiser with a 25-year track record of raising more than $1 billion for causes worldwide, Croom built a career most development professionals only dream of. Over the past several years, however, the weight of that career – the deadlines, the personalities, the biases, the relentless pressure – led to a clinical diagnosis of anxiety and depression.
She sought therapy, but chose not to address her healing only clinically. She wanted both – clinical care and something deeper. That decision led her back to a lifelong love of plant-based healing. Learn more about the Tea Blend and Sip experience she created from that journey.
Folk Medicine as a Lifelong Anchor
Croom’s relationship with plant-based healing stretches back to childhood – a foundation that never left her. When her own burnout reached a breaking point, she returned to it with intention, traveling to Indigenous communities around the world to study ethnobotany: the medicinal, spiritual, and ceremonial uses of native plants.
That journey gave rise to Itutu Apothecary and Tea Room, a mobile apothecary offering restorative herbal experiences for people who give everything to their work and often forget to care for themselves.
How Folk Herbalism Addresses Burnout
Folk herbalism is not just tradition – specific plants interact with the body’s stress systems in ways that are increasingly supported by research.
Adaptogens That Modulate Stress Hormones
Adaptogenic herbs – including Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, and Eleuthero root – are recognized for their ability to help the body adapt to physical and psychological stressors. They work by modulating the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis, the system that governs the body’s cortisol response. Chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated; adaptogens help regulate that cycle, building resilience and combating the deep fatigue that defines burnout.
Calming Herbs for Anxiety Relief
Herbs such as chamomile, lavender, lemon balm, passionflower, kava, and valerian have been studied for their ability to ease stress and nervous system arousal. These herbs work through calming mechanisms, though effects vary: some, including valerian and kava, may have sedative properties or cause drowsiness, and kava carries specific safety considerations regarding liver health. When incorporated into a mindful tea-blending ritual, the combined effect of the herbs and the practice itself creates a meaningful stress-relief experience.
Inside the Tea Blend and Sip Experience
Hands-On Herbalism, Not a Passive Workshop
The Tea Blend and Sip experience offered through Itutu Apothecary and Tea Room is not a lecture or a passive wellness seminar. Participants blend their own herbal teas, guided through the properties and purposes of each ingredient. The practice of mindful tea blending and intentional tea drinking is linked to psychological wellness, creativity, and meaningful connection – outcomes that go well beyond what a standard stress management presentation delivers.
The ritual itself matters too. Preparing and drinking herbal tea fosters mindfulness, heightened sensory awareness, and reduced anxiety – turning what might seem like a simple cup of tea into a genuine moment of restoration. For teams that run on urgency, that intentional pause is often exactly what is missing.
Who These Experiences Are Built For
These experiences are designed with the unique needs of nonprofit professionals, fundraisers, philanthropy leaders, educators, and mission-driven organizations in mind – the people who spend their lives caring for others and rarely carve out time to care for themselves. They are a fit for team retreats, staff appreciation events, conferences, and organizational wellness initiatives. Any group carrying the emotional weight of mission-driven work can benefit.
Burnout Is an Organizational Risk – Not Just a Personal One
Burnout is not a personal failing. It is an organizational liability. A striking 95% of nonprofit leaders have expressed concern about staff burnout – and for good reason. When key fundraisers leave, donor relationships go cold, grant pipelines stall, and institutional knowledge walks out the door. The cost of replacing a single mid-level fundraiser – in recruiting, onboarding, and lost revenue – can easily exceed a full year’s salary.
Investing in staff well-being is not a perk. It is a retention strategy, a mission-protection strategy, and increasingly, a leadership imperative. Wellness programs that incorporate mindfulness, stress management, and mental health education are among the most effective tools nonprofits have for keeping their people healthy and in the field longer.
Book a Tea Blend and Sip Experience for Your Team
The Tea Blend and Sip experience through Itutu Apothecary and Tea Room brings folk herbalism directly to teams – at retreats, conferences, staff events, or organizational gatherings. It is a wellness investment grounded in real science, delivered by someone who has lived the fundraiser burnout experience firsthand and found her way through it.
For any team in the nonprofit and philanthropic space feeling the weight of the work, this is more than a nice afternoon activity. It is a restorative reset built with the people who keep missions moving in mind.
Croom Fundraising and Philanthropy, Inc. – led by global fractional fundraiser Kia Croom – is dedicated to sustaining the people and organizations driving social change, from fundraising strategy to the holistic well-being of the professionals behind it.
Croom Fundraising & Philanthropy, Inc.
kia@kiacroom.com
+1 202 344 7165
3426 Fort Lyon Drive
Woodbridge
us
22192
United States
